Government says deal allowing Beijing officials to interrogate Chinese nationals was standard ‘technical arrangement’
The Swiss government has strongly rejected accusations that a deal allowing Chinese officials to enter Switzerland and interrogate Chinese nationals put dissidents at risk.
Switzerland entered into a so-called re-admission agreement with China back in 2015. The deal expired on Monday.
Continue reading...Survey finds more than 600,000 may want to move to Britain, many within two years of January start date
Hong Kong residents are likely to move to the UK faster than the British government has anticipated, and more should be done to prepare for their arrival, a new advocacy group has said.
HongKongers in Britain (HKB) surveyed city residents hoping to emigrate under a new British government scheme that opens in January, allowing those with colonial-era British National Overseas (BNO) status to obtain visas and pursue a “path to citizenship”.
Continue reading...Court expected to rule there is still insufficient evidence against China, but file to be kept open
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has asked for more evidence before it will be willing to open an investigation into claims of genocide against Uighur people by China, but has said it will keep the file open for such further evidence to be submitted.
With Beijing not a signatory to the ICC, those bringing the claim of genocide have pointed to the alleged forcing of Uighur people from Tajikistan and Cambodia into China as evidence. Both countries are signatories to the Rome statute setting up the ICC.
Continue reading...Automation is revolutionising China’s pork farms but leaving independent farmers behind
A slender snout. Shapely, upright ears. Like humans, pigs have idiosyncratic faces, and new players in the Chinese pork market are taking notice, experimenting with increasingly sophisticated versions of facial recognition software for pigs.
China is the world’s largest exporter of pork, and is set to increase production next year by 9%. As the nation’s pork farms grow in scale, more farmers are turning to AI systems like facial recognition technology – known as FRT – to continuously monitor, identify, and even feed their herds.
Continue reading...First results released from trial of Sinopharm shot involving 31,000 people
The United Arab Emirates said a Chinese coronavirus vaccine tested in the federation of sheikhdoms has 86% efficacy, in a statement that provided few details but marked the first public release of information on the performance of the shot.
The announcement brought yet another contender into the worldwide race for a vaccine to end the pandemic, a scientific effort in which China and Russia are competing with western firms to develop an effective inoculation.
Continue reading...Agents travelled from China at Swiss taxpayers’ expense to interview deportation targets
The full text of a secret deal between Switzerland and China that allowed Chinese security officials access to the country at Swiss taxpayers’ expense has been revealed for the first time as the government pushes to renew it.
The five-year “readmission agreement”, which was signed in 2015 and expired on Monday, lay out terms for Chinese agents to travel to Switzerland and interview suspected Chinese nationals that Swiss authorities wished to deport.
Continue reading...Trade minister Simon Birmingham says ‘targeted nature’ of China’s measures raise concern about its adherence to trade deal and WTO obligations
China appears to be breaching its trade deal with Australia by taking a series of “disruptive and restrictive measures” against Australian exports, the Morrison government has said.
As concerns grow among Australian exporters about the impact of a widening range of actions, the trade minister, Simon Birmingham, told the Senate on Wednesday all dispute settlement options were on the table.
Continue reading...Chinese authorities using a data-driven ‘predictive policing’ network to intern people from Muslim minorities
A rare leak of a prisoner list from a Chinese internment camp shows how a government data programme targets Muslim minorities for detention over transgressions that include simply being young, or speaking to a sibling living abroad.
The database obtained by Human Rights Watch (HRW) sheds new light on how authorities in Xinjiang region use a vast “predictive policing” network, that tracks individuals’ personal networks, their online activity and daily life.
Continue reading...The Smithsonian national zoo’s three giant pandas will stay in Washington for another three years, upholding a decades-long tradition
Donald Trump may have done his best to disrupt Washington’s relations with Beijing, but at least Americans will still be able to enjoy the original bonus of more open links with China: giant pandas.
Ever since Richard Nixon welcomed the gift of the animals when he “opened up” China in the early 70s, panda diplomacy has loomed large in relations between the two countries.
Continue reading...Shuang bao tai 双胞胎 is the Chinese word for twin. Following on from Land of Ibeji, Sanne de Wilde and Bénédicte Kurzen travel to Mojiang in Yunnan for the second chapter of their project about the mythology of twinhood. The area has an exceptionally high percentage of twins, celebrated in its annual tropic of cancer twin festival
The first chapter of this project was called Land Of Ibeji. West Africa, and specifically Yorubaland, has 10 times more twins than any other region in the world. Ibeji, meaning “double birth” and “the inseparable two” in Yoruba stands for the ultimate harmony between two people. “Shuang bao tai”, 双胞胎 is the Chinese word for twin, which translates as: 双 double 胞 womb 胎 embryo.
Continue reading...Joseph Wu says Beijing is seeking to expand its ‘authoritarian order’ and calls for ‘like-minded’ nations to act together to protect Taiwan
The international community must join together in resisting China’s expansionism and preventing an invasion of Taiwan by sharing intelligence, rethinking Chinese business ties and boosting Taipei’s presence on the world stage, Taiwan’s foreign minister has said.
In an interview with the Guardian, Joseph Wu said China’s activities in the South China and East China seas, its border skirmishes with India, and its crackdown on Hong Kong were evidence of it seeking to “expand its authoritarian order”, and that Taiwan was its next target.
Continue reading...Peers prepare to back cross-party move to block trade agreements with any country deemed to be committing genocide
Ministers face a double defeat in the Lords over Britain’s trading links with China as peers prepare to back a cross-party move to block trade agreements with any country deemed by the UK high court to be committing genocide.
The manoeuvre is in addition to Labour-led plans in the upper house to require a government human rights risk assessment before backing a Brexit trade deal.
Continue reading...Uighurs in the diaspora are fighting to keep the art form alive as poets and writers in Xinjiang are silenced or detained
A few weeks ago Mamutjan Abdurehim was trying to remember a poem that he and his wife used to teach their four-year-old daughter. The rhyming couplets were easy to remember instructions on etiquette at the dinner table – to say bismillah before eating and to start with one’s right hand. He hoped that by helping his daughter recite the qoshaq, a traditional Uighur folk poem, she would remember where she came from even as the family was living overseas.
Memories like these are dear to Abdurehim who has not been able to see or speak to his family in Xinjiang in almost five years. His daughter is 10 years old now; his son would be 5. He believes his wife has been detained in an internment camp or sent to prison, one of more than one million Uighurs caught up in what human rights advocates say is a state-led campaign of cultural genocide. Abdurehim, now living in Sydney, asked his friends on Facebook if anyone knew the rest of the poem but no one could remember.
Continue reading...The 27-year-old activist, who was forced to flee the city by Beijing’s crackdown, is determined to continue the fight for freedom
Nathan Law began 2020 planning a new run for office in Hong Kong. He has ended it a political exile in Britain, unsure if he will ever be able to return to the city he calls home, or speak to his family again, because of his work campaigning for democracy.
The end of the year has been particularly painful for the 27-year-old. He has watched from the other side of the world as friends in Hong Kong, including Joshua Wong and Agnes Chow, have been jailed for their campaign work. He has been unable to send them even an email of support.
Continue reading...My friend Aynür’s life tells the story of how Uighurs have been purposefully dehumanised by the party-state
During my first year living in Ürümchi, the capital of Xinjiang, I met Aynür (not her real name). It was 2007, and she described life in China as difficult but improving for Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking predominantly Muslim people. Aynür spoke both Uighur and Mandarin, and was proud of being “in-between cultures”. She described herself as a bridge between the Han majority, who make up about 90% of China’s population and the Uighurs, Xinjiang’s ethnic majority.
Aynür invited me to her home and we watched China’s national day celebrations – parades of tanks, warheads, and motorcades – on TV . Aynür could not understand my lack of amusement; the spectacle made her proud of China’s rapid development and hopeful that Xinjiang’s problems could be resolved. Over the years, as new policies affected her work, her home and her family life, her outlook changed. The hints had been there when we first met: she worried aloud about future generations’ ability to speak the Uighur language and their right to practise their religion. When Aynür asked to see pictures of my “homeland”, she was stunned by the sight of Scottish flags adorning Edinburgh castle. She was amazed that “minority people” within larger nations could express their own identity. “If we were allowed to do this, most of our problems would be gone.”
Continue reading...Five still trapped after accident involving workers dismantling underground equipment at Diaoshuidong coal mine
Eighteen miners have been confirmed dead after a carbon monoxide leak at a coal mine in southwestern China, state media reported, with rescue efforts under way to reach five others still trapped underground.
Twenty-four miners were caught up in the accident at the Diaoshuidong mine in the city of Chongqing, around 1,800km south-west of Beijing, after the gas leak occurred on Friday, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Continue reading...Australian experts and Israeli cybersecurity firm allege ‘unusual behaviour’ by Twitter accounts retweeting or liking Zhao Lijian’s tweet
A Chinese official’s tweet of an image of an Australian soldier that sparked a furious reaction from Canberra was amplified across social media by unusual accounts, of which half were likely fake, Australian experts and an Israeli cybersecurity firm say.
The digitally created image that purported to show an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife to the throat of an Afghan child was tweeted by China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, on Monday.
Continue reading...US prosecutors are discussing a deal with lawyers for the Huawei finance chief, Meng Wanzhou, to resolve criminal charges against her, a person familiar with the matter said, signaling a potential end to a case that has strained ties between the United States, China and Canada.
Negotiations between Meng’s attorneys and the US justice department picked up after the US presidential election a month ago, the person said, but it is still unclear what kind of deal could be struck.
Continue reading...Chinese official says article labelling it as biggest threat to democracy since WW2 is ‘concoction of lies’
China has rejected as a “concoction of lies” an incendiary article by the US’s most senior intelligence official, who labelled China the biggest threat to democracy and freedom since the second world war.
In a Wall Street Journal column, John Ratcliffe, the US director of national intelligence, said China was bent on world domination and the US needed to prepare for an “open-ended period of confrontation”.
Continue reading...MP Andrew Hastie has criticised the release of details included in the war crimes report for allowing China to ‘malign our troops’; PM faces questions over Murdoch Christmas party flight; NSW awaits update on new Covid cluster. Follow all today’s news
Good morning, Matilda Boseley here. It’s nearly the end of the week and what better way to reach the finish line than to stick around on the Guardian live blog and get all your much-needed news updates, Covid-19 or otherwise.
First up, Liberal MP Andrew Hastie has criticised the Brereton Report which he says was filled with “unproven rumours” of Australian soldiers murdering Afghan children, saying the report has given China an opening to malign Australian troops.
Continue reading...